


two breaths walking

by ryukogo



Series: the flowers we breathe, the words we don't speak [2]
Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Falling In Love, Flowers, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Sharing a Bed, hanahaki byou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25488577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryukogo/pseuds/ryukogo
Summary: "You know, I’ve loved you all this time. There doesn’t need to be a 'why'."---The color of denial does not suit you, Yuki Rurikawa.
Relationships: Furuichi Sakyou/Tachibana Izumi but it's only vaguely referenced, Rurikawa Yuki & Summer Troupe, Rurikawa Yuki/Sakisaka Muku, Sakisaka Muku & Summer Troupe, Sakuma Sakuya/Sumeragi Tenma
Series: the flowers we breathe, the words we don't speak [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846387
Comments: 9
Kudos: 78





	two breaths walking

**Author's Note:**

> hi! mukuyuki reigns supreme in my head, so you can have this now from my head to your doorstep
> 
> also this is a sequel to 'in between breath's. i should connect that to this fic brb

He knows Tenma’s talking to Sakuya again.

It was pretty obvious, really, with the way his face seemed to light up every other two minutes while he was on his phone. It’s the middle of the night, just like when he’d first woken Yuki up a week ago with the cherry blossoms spilling from his mouth, but it felt like it was merely evening with the fact that both of them were still awake at this hour.

Tenma’s already tucked into bed, for the most part. Yuki knows this because he’d retired earlier for the night than he usually did, because the others were still milling about in the living room area by that time. Yuki himself had squirreled himself away in their room early to try and sketch out some modifications to Azuma’s costume due to a sudden change in plans, but at least two hours had already passed and he’d barely made any real progress.

The moon is bright outside. Even without the desk lamp he had on and aimed towards his notebook, Yuki’s certain he would’ve had enough light to do what he wanted to do thanks to the moon. The lights in their room are all off - save for the light coming from Tenma’s phone and the desk lamp.

“Oi, useless actor,” Yuki calls. “I thought you were going to bed.”

Tenma’s gaze flickers to him briefly. “I’m talking to Sakuya.”

“You talk to him  _ every day, _ ” Yuki stresses. “You’ll see him tomorrow. Go to bed already before I make you.”

Tenma rolls his eyes. “It’s my relationship. I’ll do what I want.”

“And Sakyo’s going to do what  _ he  _ wants when he finds out you kept yourself and 100% concentrate up all night gabbing like high school girls.”

“Why do you care, anyway?” He raises an eyebrow at Yuki. “It’s not like I’m actually being noisy. What, this irritating you, brat?”

Yuki sniffs. “No. Of course not.” Of  _ course  _ he wasn’t irritated by them being in a relationship. Good for them. Of  _ course  _ he wasn’t irritated by the fact that Tenma’s fingers were so  _ noisy  _ when they tapped against his phone screen.

“Then let me  _ be,  _ damn. I nearly fucking died.”

“And  _ I’m  _ this close to smothering you with a pillow because I can’t focus knowing you’re still awake.”

Okay, so  _ maybe  _ he’s a little irritated by the honeymoon phase of their relationship. But  _ honestly,  _ he liked it marginally better when Tenma ran his mouth in his sleep, compared to the sounds of  _ taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap- _

“Are you deaf, dumbass? Go the fuck to sleep. Stop that.”

Tenma snorts. “Make me.”

* * *

He does, indeed, make Tenma sleep. Methods may or may not have included threatening to cut his charger cord in half and then robbing him blind to fund his expensive hobby.

* * *

With Tenma finally ( _ finally _ ) on his way to falling asleep, Yuki’s able to focus further on calculating the exact changes in length to Azuma’s sleeves - or well, at least, that  _ was  _ what was supposed to happen.

Instead, Yuki coughs. Loudly.

Tenma rolls over to face him at the sound, brow furrowed in concern. “Rurikawa.”

“What.” Yuki’s hands are small and deft. It’s easy to hide the bellflower petal that finds its way up his throat and out his mouth when he puts his hand down as he faces Tenma. “Can’t talk to Sakuya so now you’re gonna bother me? Honestly.”

Tenma scowls. “Whatever. I was just concerned because you were  _ coughing _ and wondering if you were sick. Apparently  _ not  _ if you’re just insulting me.”

“I’m clearly  _ fine,  _ useless actor. Save your worry for your new boyfriend.” With a roll of his eyes, Yuki discreetly slides the petal under a stack of papers before going back to work. “I’ll be going to bed in two hours, so if you’re still awake by then, I’ll kill you myself.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

“Wh- that’s not what I- oh, you  _ brat, _ ” Tenma seethes, but he does do what Yuki wants - roll over to face the wall and fall asleep on his own. For some reason, he’s not sleep talking this night, but Yuki supposes dead silence is better than noise overall.

Certain that Tenma’s no longer awake, he pulls out the bellflower petal from under the papers, turning it over in his hands. He’d coughed up a whole one a few days ago - just one, in the presence of Azami and Muku and Kumon, but none of them had really noticed so he’d kept it to himself. He’d thought he’d hallucinated the whole thing after a few days passed and no other flowers came out of him.

And then he’d coughed up a petal. And another.

They weren’t bloody. Tenma’s cherry blossoms had been bloodied at tips, while Sakuya’s sunflowers had looked  _ drenched  _ in red. His were untouched, like petals plucked before their prime. They came in mostly purples, but some came in white. Tonight’s petals had been white.

A cough wracks his body. When his hand leaves his mouth, it’s a purple one this time.

Still not bloody.

Was there a nonlethal version of hanahaki? If there was, it probably explained why he wasn’t feeling like he was dying, or like something was growing inside of him without permission. But in the first place, having hanahaki meant he was either in love, or someone was in love with  _ him.  _ Both possibilities seemed way out of reach for him - sure, he had friends. But who could  _ possibly  _ be in love with him?

Love - romantic love, anyway - wasn’t something to be borne when it came to him.

And besides… he wasn’t in love with anyone.

“You said summer troupe didn’t deal with things on their own anymore.”

Yuki startles a little. “I thought you were  _ asleep,  _ hack _. _ ”

“Hard to sleep knowing that you’re hiding something.” Tenma rolls over and affixes a serious look on his face, frowning at Yuki. “Seriously. You’re the one who said that we tell each other whenever we’re going through something.”

The petals feel like dry ice under his palm, hidden but burning his skin like a brand. “... Okay. Fine. You caught me. I might be getting sick.”

“What kind of sick are we talking about here?” Tenma moves to get up, but Yuki holds up his other hand to stop him.

“Like… throat dry kind of sick. Might be coming down with a sore throat or something. Throat’s been itchy.” That’s not a full lie, at least - his throat  _ was  _ itchy. All the symptoms of sore throat conveniently lined up with his current predicament, so maybe he could get away with it this time. “Been taking lozenges.”

Tenma blinks at him slowly, suspiciously. “That’s what’s been in your mouth the past few days?”

“Why were you watching me, creep.”

“OI! It’s kind of hard to miss the fact there’s something in your mouth, brat! You rarely shut up otherwise!”

Yuki snickers at his frustration, but the fact that he’d noticed something like that is unsettling. That meant he needed to be a lot more careful with hiding the petals - the flowers, worst came to worst.

_ You’re making this worse for yourself,  _ the rational part of his mind says.  _ Just tell him already. Then you’d get assistance faster. _

“If you’re that concerned, just go out and buy me more packs of lozenges then tomorrow.” Yuki waves him off. “Go back to sleep already.”

“...”

“What are you looking at.”

“... Nothing,” Tenma mutters before rolling over again. “You’re sure you’re not hiding anything else from me?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

**_I thought we all agreed that the summer troupe would not deal with things all on our own anymore._ **

Oh, how hypocritical a fool he was, wasn’t he?

* * *

Yuki was no Kazunari, but he definitely drew things better than Tenma did.

With the modifications to Azuma’s costume already done and dealt with, two days later Yuki was technically finished with his work as MANKAI’s costume designer for the current play. This meant that his schedule had essentially been freed up to the point that after doing his homework for the day, he had way more hours left over than he was used to. Which was fine, really - it let Yuki work on personal projects he hadn’t finished yet.

Right now he was sitting in the grass in the courtyard, sheltering under Pontaro (seriously, what kind of person names a tree Pontaro?) with his sketchbook propped up on his knees and a pencil case by his side. He’d been planning on designing a new array of sundresses for himself to wear when the weather was simply too hot, but so far he hadn’t gotten any inspiration as to  _ what  _ they’d look like in the first place.

Kazunari had suggested sitting in the courtyard, so there he was. Sitting in the courtyard, hoping and praying to God inspiration would hit him in the face.

It’s a golden sort of afternoon, he thinks - one that Homare would’ve probably waxed poetic about for at  _ least  _ three hours given the chance. Tsumugi’s the only one currently in the courtyard with him, the older male tending to the flowers in the area with a smile on his face and soft whispers on his lips judging from the way they parted every so often as he faced some flowers. No doubt talking to the plants again. Something about encouraging them to grow up healthy.

Well. Yuki wasn’t going to judge him for something like that. Tsumugi was probably one of the few people that Yuki had more than a sliver of respect for - the man was just simply an  _ angel _ , through and through, even out of the Michael costume. It was probably the blackest of marks on your soul to be mean to him, or something.

That had been something Taichi had told him, so of course he took it with a grain of salt, but... honestly? He wouldn’t put it past God to hate anyone who fucked with Tsumugi Tsukioka, actually.

Idly, on the edges of the page Yuki doodles the flowers that Tsumugi just finished watering. Pansies, white. He remembers Taichi having had to hold a pot of them once for a photo shoot, since it was his assigned flower.

_ White pansies… thoughts of love,  _ Yuki thinks. His pencil scratches against the paper as he lightly shades sections of the petals to imply depth. His grasp on  _ hanakotoba -  _ flower language - was rusty; he’d need to brush up again on some of them if he wanted to tackle anything flower related in-

_ That’s it. _

He could make sundresses inspired by flowers. Maybe incorporate the petals as off-shoulder sleeves, or the skirt? Or perhaps the bodice… maybe make matching bags with them?

Oh, the  _ possibilities. _

“T-Tsumugi? I got the flowers you asked for!”

_ Muku? _

Yuki looks up from his sketchbook.

Surely enough, it’s Muku that wanders into the courtyard, holding a potted hibiscus with both hands. Strangely enough there are flowers in his hair and dirt streaked across his cheek, as though he’d already taken a tumble in Tsumugi’s flowers, but Yuki’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen Muku all day in the garden.

Tsumugi greets him gently. “Thank you, Muku, really. I’m incredibly lucky that you were around when Tasuku couldn’t get them for me.”

“It’s nothing,” Muku smiles bashfully, and the sight makes Yuki’s throat itch for a moment before his friend looks away from Tsumugi and meets his gaze. At the sight of Yuki, Muku seems to brighten up, and he nods at Tsumugi before approaching.

Yuki lets himself lean against the tree as Muku leans over him, smiling. The sunlight filtering through the leaves dapple prettily against his cheeks and hair as he greets, “What’re you doing?”

“Designing,” Yuki moves over a bit and pats the grass next to him, and Muku happily goes to sit next to him as he adds, “Dresses for the summer. Gonna base them off some of Tsumugi’s flowers and plants.”

Muku’s eyes sparkle at the idea. “Oh! That’d be  _ really  _ nice, Yuki. I’m excited to see when you finish them!”

“You’re always excited whenever I finish something like clothes.”

“Yeah, because that’s what you love doing, right?” Yuki gives him a bewildered stare at his words. “If Yuki’s happy doing something that he loves, then… I’d be happy and excited for you too!”

Something tickles in his throat again. Yuki knows it’s more petals, but he forces them back the best he can as he shakes his head at Muku. “Sentimental wonder boy. Then that means you should always be happy, because I’m always working on something new.”

“I am though,” Muku murmurs. Yuki looks at him as he draws his knees up to his chin, smiling to himself. “I’m happy being with my friends, but I’m happiest when I’m with everyone here in MANKAI, with the summer troupe… with Yuki. You know?”

Crawling, crawling. Like vines they were crawling and overtaking his throat. Buds yet to bloom were opening, unfurling, bloom, bloom, blooming.

“...” Yuki turns his gaze back to his sketchbook. His cheeks are flushed. He refuses to acknowledge it as he murmurs, “No wonder the director calls you and Tsumugi angels.”

“E-eh?!”

Yuki laughs, and feels a cough attempting to tear its way out of his body. He plays it off by laughing louder, buckling over and choking on laughter, and petals, and hiding the petals by catching them in his hands as they slide down his sketchbook right into cupped palms. He feels Muku’s hand patting his back awkwardly, and he laughs even louder.

“Yuki, are you okay?” Muku asks. “I-It wasn’t  _ that  _ funny, was it?”

Yuki’s fingers close over the bunched up flower heads as he sits up straight again. “Yeah. Sorry. Kind of got stuck coughing for a while there while laughing.”

“Coughing?” Muku tenses. “Are you sick?”

_ Yes.  _ “Might be. The hack’s been buying lozenges for me because he’s worried about it. It’s nothing to worry about, so I’m only really a little annoyed by the fact he didn’t believe me.”

“Can you blame him though?” Muku asks. “After that whole thing with the hanahaki, I think it makes sense that he’s wary of coughing nowadays. I would be too.”

“You worry too much.”

“... I guess so.”

It’s silent for a few minutes before Yuki remembers something. He looks back at Muku, and reaches up to his hair. Muku tenses when his hand draws close before blinking as Yuki pulls out one of the flowers stuck in his hair.

“Where’d you get these?” he asks him, turning the flower over in his hands. Lilies. “Don’t tell me you decided to emulate the puppy pair and roll in the dirt of the flowerbeds.”

Muku turns bright crimson, stammering. “O-of course not! I didn’t roll around in the dirt- um. I kind of. Fell in a pot of lilies though. I-I guess I didn’t notice some got stuck in my hair when I came back with the flowers for Tsumugi.”

Muku’s gotten pretty good at adlibbing, but he’s still a poor liar. This Yuki knows for certain.

_ Muku… why are you lying to me? _

But then again, he supposes he has no right to speak. He lied to Muku’s face, after all, that he had just a cough. He supposes that makes them both even, in a way - but it does not stop his curiosity at what exactly Muku had to hide.

The flowers curl around in his throat with each passing minute.

* * *

Yuki wakes up on the couch after a strange dream involving omurice and bugs and Tsumugi and dancing flowers, and wonders when he’d done so. Or when he’d ended up passing out on the couch in the first place.

Blearily he turns his head to the side. He sees the coffee table, but his phone is nowhere to be found.

“Your phone’s under the pillow you’re lying down on. You always put it there somehow even when you pass out unwillingly.”

His hand shoots under his pillow. Surely enough, his fingers close around his phone, and he pulls it out. 8PM.

_ When had it gotten so late? _

Yuki sits up with a groan, feeling like he’d just had a truck barrel right into him. He knows his hair is sticking up in odd angles like Homare’s does thanks to the position he’d fallen asleep in, but he only briefly combs through it with his fingers as he tries to remember how he’d even gotten in the living room in the first place.

_ I was in the courtyard. I was sketching.  _ His eyes are drawn to the coffee table again. There’s his sketchpad, propped open, his pencils next to it.  _ … Dress designs. Based on flowers. Tsumugi… and then... _

Muku’s name barely crosses his mind before he remembers the chilling unfurling of blooming flowers, deep within his chest. He thinks he can hear it now, actually - the brush of petals bursting open and making their home within his chest, the choking feeling in his throat, in his lungs, leaving room for nothing else except for the frantic beating of a heart that threatened to give in at any moment.

Yuki’s hand flutters towards his chest, his shoulders rising and falling with each labored breath. It was already getting harder to breathe.

“I said before that I might just go white before I hit twenty if this happens again.”

Yuki freezes.

Azami, from his seat on the other sofa, looks at him, unimpressed. His arms are crossed as he raises an eyebrow. “You’re a hypocrite. You damn well know that, don’t you?”

“Didn’t ask,” Yuki grits out as he lets his feet hit the floor. He tries not to meet Azami’s eyes, but he knows he’s still looking at him with those sharp eyes of his. He’s a lot like Sakyo in that regard - but if he says that Azami’s going to tear him a new one and refuse to do his makeup during the next play. “What do you even  _ want _ .”

“I want you to tell the old man.”

“ _ Fuck  _ that.”

“You’re a grade A moron.” Azami snaps. “And to think I thought you were the one with any form of brain cells in your troupe. Your leader and the spring troupe’s leader literally went through this already. Literally only a week or so ago. And now you’re just going to-”

Yuki picks up his sketchbook and pencils, pointedly refusing to look at him. “Again, I didn’t  _ fucking  _ **_ask_ ** for your two cents on this, Izumida. And for the record, I’m doing better than the hack, because I’m not in love, and there’s no blood when it comes to me. I’m not going to die.”

“Didn’t ask for the nitty gritty.”

“Then what  _ are  _ you asking for, then?”

Yuki dares to look up at Azami. The scorching heat of his eyes is startling. “Are you sure you’re not in love? You can’t fool anyone with that shit and you know it. The old man didn’t fool anyone with his.”

“I’m sure,” Yuki growls, but his entire chest is aching, as if protesting his own words. The choking feeling is back in his throat, but it’s muted for the most part as he forces himself not to think of names, of faces, of feelings-

“It’s Muku, isn’t it?”

Just his name is enough to trigger a sudden blossoming within him. A blossoming of warmth that spreads across his cheeks like the rays of the summer sun on bare skin, the feeling of flowers blooming inside that hollow chest of his and nestling in between his ribs, filling him up and weighing him down and crawling up his throat and threatening to scatter across the floor-

Yuki stumbles to his feet. Before the first flower can push its way out of his mouth, he takes off running, hugging the sketchbook to his chest like his life depended on it. He can hear Azami tearing after him, calling his name and no doubt attracting attention to them, but his voice is faint, closer to static noise than anything. Despite this, Yuki forces his shaking legs to go faster, forces himself to run to the first room he can seek solace in-

A door opens. He doesn’t even bother checking what room it is. He ducks in, forces the door shut, locks it, and throws himself into the nearest bed inside it, hiding under the sheets.

He hears Azami knock on the door once, twice. And then he stops. Silence.

Yuki doesn’t peek his head out from under the covers. His sketchbook is still held tightly to his chest, his knees drawn up to it as he curls up on the bed. Whoever was in the room with him, they were going to ask what was wrong. He knows it.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, and hates the fact that he flinches at it.

He hears whispering, and tenses when the door opens, and shuts again. It’s silent for a few moments… and then he hears the voice of the one person he’d both dreaded and hoped to hear the voice of.

“Yuki…” Muku whispers, and in the quiet gloom Yuki realizes that he must have sent Kazunari out for a bit. “Are you okay?”

He’s not. He knows he’s not.

He’d been trying to deny this fact for a while now, but it was getting increasingly harder to pretend that there weren’t Chinese bellflowers threatening to burst out from his chest with every passing day, increasingly harder to pretend that the sight of one of his closest and dearest friends did not bloom within him a euphoria unmatched. It’s hard - but Yuki Rurikawa was nothing if not stubborn.

“... I guess not,” Muku murmurs sadly, and Yuki tentatively shifts, enough that he can at least peek at Muku from under the covers. When he looks, Muku’s sitting at his side, looking wistfully into the distance - that is, Kazunari’s bed. In the dim light of the moon, Muku’s eyes sparkle as they always do.

Yuki’s fingers dig into the covers of his sketchbook when he feels the flowers at the base of his throat again.

Muku laces his fingers together, and when he shifts Yuki realizes with a jolt that the flowers are still in his hair. The lilies he’d seen from earlier. He hadn’t removed them? “If Yuki won’t talk, then that’s okay. I’ll… I’ll be here still, like a good friend should. That’s what good friends do, right?”

He looks at Yuki, and Yuki’s struck by the mournfulness in his gaze. There are emotions that he can’t even  _ begin  _ to describe mixing together in Muku’s eyes - but for some reason it resonates with him like the dying echoes of a bell’s toll. Mainly there is a resignation in his eyes that Yuki doesn’t understand… but there is also a prevailing, unwavering sort of  _ affection  _ that would have sent Yuki to his knees if he’d been standing.

Had Muku always looked at him with those eyes before?

He finds himself speaking, and cringes internally at the throaty, raspy quality to his voice. “Sorry for barging in on you like this.”

“It’s okay. You know you can always come over when you need to,” Muku says, and Yuki would very much like to cry, because how the fuck was Muku Sakisaka such an  _ angel  _ and why was he such an  _ angel  _ and he was so, so wrong on him not being a prince at all, and not being as cool as Yuki- when Muku was being the cool one right now. Being so calm, and composed, and- and-

Yuki tries not to choke. On tears, or on flowers, he’s not sure.

“... Lie down with me,” he asks softly. Muku obliges him, and lies down on top of the covers next to him. Yuki dares to rest his forehead against his shoulder, hands still clutching his sketchbook, but it doesn’t seem like Muku minded in the least as he reaches under the covers and puts a hand on the sketchbook. Yuki lets go of it after a bit, and Muku places it under his mattress, under his bed.

The only barriers between them are the sheets. It doesn’t really make a difference.

“This feels familiar, doesn’t it?” Muku says, and Yuki knows he’s referring to when he’d first allowed himself to open up in front of Muku, when they’d first been distributing flyers for  _ Water Me!  _ on Veludo Way. Except they’d been standing, where now they were lying down, and they were older now compared to that day. And Yuki sure as hell wasn’t choking on fucking  _ Chinese bellflowers  _ that day like he was now. “Ah… sorry. Might have been a bad memory.”

“No,” Yuki breathes, and he knows Muku hears how  _ strained  _ his voice is when he feels him tense. “It’s… a memory. Not a bad one altogether. You called me cool.”

Muku laughs, and only now does Yuki notice that Muku’s laughing is strained too. Hollow-sounding - it’s a genuine laugh, but with how close he is to Muku’s chest he can hear something  _ wrong  _ with the way the laughs leave his mouth. “Yuki’s always been cool in my eyes… especially that day. Wish I could be as cool as you.”

“You are, though,” Yuki mutters. Muku’s head seems to lean in closer, his cheek pressing against the top of Yuki’s head as he speaks. “You’re… you’ve become a real prince already, Muku. Both on and offstage.”

“You think so?” Yuki feels him smile against his hair. Despite the ever encroaching flowers, it’s comforting to have Muku so close. “... It’s nice hearing it from you. It makes it seem more true if it comes from someone as cool as Yuki.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Muku doesn’t answer for a bit. “... I don’t know. It does, though.”

“Dummy. There should be a reason for that.”

“Sometimes things don’t have a reason, right?” Muku murmurs into his hair. “Sometimes… there are things that happen for no reason. That’s what makes life what it is. Even in my mangas… sometimes the person I think the main character is going to end up with, doesn’t end up with the main character, for no reason. Sometimes the person I think that is going to die… doesn’t die. Sometimes… things like that happen.”

Yuki’s silent as Muku laughs softly. The distinct hollowness is still there, prevailing. “Sometimes… a daikon like me falls in love, for no reason. Falls in love with someone who won’t like him back like that. But that’s okay. Life is like that… after all, I’ll always be the third wheel.”

Muku was in love with someone.

Yuki knows it isn’t Tenma, because Tenma’s in love with Sakuya, and yet the fact that Muku’s even in love with anyone makes him feel like the worst person on the planet. He should be happy for Muku, because finally his friend… he’s finally going down the road of the mangas he loved so much. And yet…

And yet, he was so fucking  _ selfish,  _ wasn’t he? He didn’t want Muku to be in love with anyone, all because  _ he  _ was getting choked to death by the flowers he refused to acknowledge in full, flowers that bloomed because he’d even dared to look at his friend, his dearest friend-

\- because he’d even dared to look at him like he was the one who put the stars in the sky.

“Whoever it is you’re in love with…” Yuki says, and it’s a struggle to even say it while keeping a calm voice. “... They’d be stupid to not love you back, wonder boy. You’re a prince. An angel, too. Anyone… they’d be lucky to have you love them.”

It hurts to say those words. But Muku needed to hear them. Yuki would be fucking  _ damned  _ if he let Muku go without hearing those words from him.

“... Thank you, Yuki…” Muku sounds… heartbroken. Yuki doesn’t understand why. “... Hearing it from you… it’s very good. It’s always sounded good when you say things like that… makes me want to believe in it more.”

Bloom.

Bloom.

Blooming.

The flowers inside him have had  _ enough,  _ and Yuki’s body shakes violently, and he’d very much like to curl in on himself if not for the fact that Muku was right there and he’d unfurl him and ask him what was wrong- but what could he tell him?

**_I’ve realized. I’ve fallen in love with you. But I didn’t want to believe it._ **

Muku doesn’t unfurl him though. When Yuki curls up in his bed, he can feel Muku curling up as well. He tries to move away, to spare Muku the disgusting experience of being next to someone beginning to cough up such traitorous flowers that spoke of his feelings for him - but then he realizes Muku is coughing too.

He’s coughing hard.

**_… Why didn’t I want to believe it?_ **

The flowers do not stop coming. With each cough that wracks his body, Yuki feels bellflower after bellflower leaving his lips. Even in the dark he knows these ones are bloody now, unlike the ones he’d first coughed up, and he realizes with grim satisfaction that the blood must have been tied to his acknowledgement of the feelings in the first place.

**_Because..._ **

He knew, and couldn’t hide that he’d fallen in love with Muku anymore. Now, it hurt doubly so - and there was the blood to speak for it.

**_Because… I didn’t want to think about a world where Muku didn’t love me back._ **

Muku’s fingers reach towards him, towards the petals he’d already thrown up. Yuki wants to snap at him - to keep his hands away from his terrible, terrible flowers and the product of his feelings - , but when he looks up to meet Muku’s eyes he realizes that Muku’s crying. The flowers in his hair - the lilies, they’re unseated from where they’re tucked in the curls of Muku’s hair as coughs make Muku’s body shudder and convulse. As white lilies claw their way out of his own mouth and find themselves stained bloody red. Whose blood was it? Yuki’s? Muku’s?

Neither of them could quite tell anymore.

**_So… I wanted to pretend that everything was the same._ **

Muku had lied to him earlier, on where the flowers had come from. He knew now though - they both had hanahaki for completely different reasons. And now they were going to die.

It’s karmic justice, Yuki thinks ruefully, to have him die next to the one he loved who was pining for another. But he supposes it’s what he fucking gets in the first place.

**_I’m so sorry, Muku._ **

Yuki thinks he hears Kazunari’s screams, but it’s fuzzy. With the last of his strength he reaches up to meet Muku’s hand, and feebly, somehow, he manages to hold his hand. The warmth is the same as always.

But even that fades away when Yuki’s eyes flutter shut.

* * *

He awakens to relative darkness.

He’s in a room that’s only dimly lit by the window his bed is next to. The curtains are parted, allowing him to see the city nightlife beyond the glass. The window’s latch is open, letting the cool night air wash against his cheeks. He wanted to go outside, and see the world just outside that window. He doesn’t know why.

He can’t, though. There is an emptiness in his chest he does not understand that is weighing him down, keeping him in place. He feels hollow, despite knowing that everything is all there. Why is that, he wonders?

He checks if he’s strong enough to prop himself up a little. He is, but barely. Still, he pushes on, and brings himself up to sit. His arms shake like the legs of a newborn fawn at the weight, creating a small struggle for him, but eventually he’s upright. He looks at his hands.

They’re delicate hands, but they’ve seen work. In the back of his mind he knows that these are the hands of someone who’s done delicate needlework, knows that these are the hands of someone who’s done good work making clothes. He has a feeling that if someone were to give him a needle and thread and a bolt of cloth, he’d be able to make something worthwhile out of it… no. He’s certain of it. He is a tailor by heart.

He looks around the room.

There’s another bed next to his. There is a boy around his age, asleep. He doesn’t remember who this boy is to him, but there is something, an unfamiliar yet familiar voice in the back of his mind telling him that he should.

_ Why?  _ he asks that voice in his head.

It doesn’t answer.

He dozes off, eventually, to the sound of the other’s steady breathing.

* * *

When he wakes, there are people in the room other than him and the other boy. There are lights on now, but the other people are still fast asleep, whether in chairs or on the floor. An orange haired boy sits slumped over in a chair in between the beds, muttering in his sleep, arms crossed over his chest.

He knows this one.

“Useless actor,” he breathes, and he’s not too surprised to hear his voice so raspy. He knows he’s in a hospital, so he must have been sick or something. “... Tenma.”

Tenma jolts awake at the sound of his voice, eyes wide.

“Yuki?!” Tenma’s voice is shaky, and it’s like his voice is the domino that topples over and makes the rest fall, because the others in the room wake up as well at the disbelief in his voice. When they see him awake, they all scramble to surround his bed as their voices all start speaking, one over the other. It’s overwhelming.

“Shut up!” A voice snaps, silencing the ones around his bed, and when Yuki turns his head he sees someone in terrible animal print -  _ Banri _ , his brain supplies - with his arms crossed and glaring at the group that had decided Yuki was the focus of the hour. Banri’s standing next to someone else, that someone else waiting patiently by the bedside of the other boy, and faintly Yuki’s brain wonders when Banri and Juza had ever gotten along.

Juza sighs. “Muku’s still asleep.”

“Good to know you’re awake though, Yuki!” The younger Hyodo, Kumon, says from his spot next to the other boy as well. “We were so worried…”

“Kumon got a fever worrying himself sick over the two of you,” Kazunari laughs, but it’s strained. “Had to take some rest himself before coming back here.”

“You’re not at your most triangular yet, but that’s okay,” Misumi says, and Yuki watches as he places a Sankaku-kun in his hands with a serious look on his face. “Here. Hold onto him. He will watch over you and Muku.”

Tenma sighs before looking at Yuki. “You said summer troupe would not deal with things all on our own anymore. Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell me?”

… Tell him what?

The words are out of his mouth before he realizes it, and with them, the others blink in surprise.

“... What do you mean,  _ what? _ ” Banri asks him, a little irritated. “You scared the  _ shit  _ out of everyone in the dorms because you thought it was a smart idea to hide that you had hanahaki  _ right after dumbass Sumeragi over here did?  _ Straight up both you and Muku thought it was a  _ grand fucking ball of a time to be an idiot like your leader- _ ”

“OI!”

_ Hanahaki…? _

The floral vomiting disease. He remembers that much. But… that meant he’d fallen in love with someone, didn’t it?

Who had he… fallen in love with?

Yuki touches his chest, and feels the hollowness inside him. It feels like he was missing something.

“... I’m sorry,” Yuki says, after a while, pulling everyone’s attention to him. “... but… I don’t remember what happened.”

“J-Juza! Muku’s waking up!”

Yuki watches as everyone’s focus turns to the boy in the bed across from him, and watches as eyes of the prettiest blue open. Muku, he assumes, looks around blearily as Kumon openly starts crying and holding his hand, and when he makes a move to sit up as well it’s Juza who helps prop him up.

He should know him, his brain thinks, but he doesn’t remember.

“Everyone…” Muku whispers. “... Sorry for worrying you so much.”

“Just glad you’re alive, Mukkun,” Kazunari says honestly. “Yukki’s alive too, so this definitely calls for celebration, yeah?”

Muku cocks a head to the side. “...?”

“What’s with that look?” Tenma asks him.

Muku’s eyes are filled with only confusion. “... Who’s Yuki?”

* * *

When they’re released from the hospital, they’re made to sit next to each other in the car, Muku next to Yuki. On Muku’s other side is Kazunari, and on Yuki’s other side is Tenma - to provide both of them people to lean on during the ride back home. They couldn’t lean on each other in the car, after all, since they were both still relatively weak after all that.

Muku had fallen in love with him, apparently. That was the only possible reason why he’d forgotten Yuki, as Yuki had forgotten him. The argument that had sparked between everyone after that had taken  _ quite  _ a while.

* * *

_ Why didn’t the flowers go away?  _ Tenma had asked. _They didn't die. They had to rip them out of them and now they forgot each other._

_ Maybe… they didn’t confess to each other like you and Sakuya did,  _ Misumi had offered sagely.  _ After all… Kazu only found them nearly dead in Muku’s bed, surrounded by flowers. That doesn't mean they told each other their feelings. _

_... _

* * *

Yuki didn’t remember any of that anyway.

Yuki spares a glance at Muku. The pink haired boy is quiet, already well on his way to falling asleep. He’s soft, like cotton candy, Yuki thinks, as his eyes flutter shut.

Did he really fall in love with this boy?

… Why couldn’t he remember?

Yuki clenches his fist. Tenma and Kazunari notice, but don’t say anything.

* * *

Both Muku and Yuki are treated to the director’s wailing as she throws her arms around both of them, thanking to the heavens that they were back and that they’d survived and  _ don’t you  _ **_dare_ ** _ do that ever again  _ **_oh_ ** _ she’d been so worried after that stint with Tenma and Sakuya _ . It’s awkward considering that the director is a grown woman and they’re basically holding her up with sheer force of will and they don’t remember each other, but oh well.

Yuki sighs. “Nothing more embarrassing than seeing an adult cry like this.”

“Oh, hush you!”

Muku laughs, and Yuki looks up. He meets his gaze, and the other boy only blinks at him before smiling at him. “We can let the director cry, can’t we?”

“Of course you can! You two nearly gave me a heart attack and nearly sent Sakyo into cardiac arrest!”

There’s an irritated grumble from Sakyo to the side saying otherwise, but neither Muku nor Yuki pay him any attention. It’s a hilarious scene, now that they were looking at it - the other troupes are wandering into the living room and witnessing Izumi hugging both teenage boys, most if not all expressing their relief that Muku and Yuki had come back home alright after that stint.

Their eyes meet again.

Even though he does not remember Muku, and only knows him thanks to the secondhand information they’d both learned from the others about each other, Yuki grins at him as though he is a friend - and he is, if what they’ve been told is correct. Muku is his closest friend out of all of them. Maybe that’s why, even despite the fact that they’d forgotten each other, despite the fact that they’d forgotten that they’d fallen in love with each other…

… it feels simply natural to smile at each other and laugh together.

When Muku grins back at him, Yuki thinks he might understand why he’d fallen in love with him the first time. His smile is like the sunlight, and warms Yuki considerably. There are no longer flowers in his chest, but his heart blooms with warmth and affection regardless.

Was that a thing that happened? Falling in love all over again, even after you’d survived hanahaki the first time? He doesn’t know for sure.

When the director finally lets go of them and ushers them back to their rooms with the rest of the summer troupe, Muku bumps shoulders with him thanks to the rest of their troupe herding them. Their hands brush against each other, and briefly, Yuki entertains the thought of linking pinkies with Muku-

\- so of course he’s a little startled when it seems like Muku read his mind, and latches onto his pinky with his own. When he looks at Muku with surprise, Muku looks down at their entwined pinkies before smiling at him so softly.

“We were friends, weren’t we?” Muku asks him in a voice so soft that only Yuki can hear. “... And we loved each other, once. Even if we don’t remember… right?”

Yes. They were friends. And they did love each other once.

“... I think… I’d like to get to know you all over again, Yuki,” Muku says earnestly. “... if you’ll let me.”

“... you really want to get to know me again? What if it happens again, and we die for real this time?” 

Muku’s gaze softens. In this moment, Yuki thinks he looks most like a prince. “At least that means I get to fall in love with you again.”

And this time, Yuki doesn’t deny the fact that his heart skips a beat at the idea.

**Author's Note:**

> eng translation of the lyrics to Two Breaths Walking (c) splendiferachie because yes
> 
> also? i will manipulate hanahaki's rules to my liking, because fuck you that's why
> 
> this was initially going to end on the 'who's yuki' but ive been traumatized by yttd's 'who's joe' so here i fucking am


End file.
